Contemporary Black poet Saul Williams said “To be honest, some freedom of speech makes me nervous,” and if you watch, read or listen to mainstream American news, it’s easy to see where he’s coming from. American news today doesn’t promote education and having a deeper understanding of issues and the world, but is actually a vehicle of anti-intellectualism and supports the existing social structure instead of giving objective criticism to these institutions.

Bill O'Reilly, famous for hosting the O'Reilly Factor and calling people pinheads on national television Source: http://www.nationofchange.org/2015/05/21/fox-news-anchor-bill-oreilly-reportedly-abused-his-wife-in-front-of-his-daughter/

Television news is no longer an effective way to get information. With few exceptions, TV news can be divided into two categories: Punditry and Evening News.

Evening news consists of shows like NBC Nightly News, ABC World News, etc. These shows are only 22 minutes long with advertisements built in to the programing. Yet unlike like BBC World News or France 24, which consist rapid fire information that pertains to politics and stories of broad interest, these American shows consist of relatively longer form stories with short reports.

These shows also have a blatant US centric view, as with most US news, while foreign programming provides a more comprehensive view of issues around the world. They also feature human interest stories, that while interesting, take away time from serious new matters and are usual altruistic, all-american sweet stories that perpetuate American ideology.

Punditry has become very popular in the US, which has been to the detriment of American critical thinking. “News” channels have filled there primetime programming with pundits with pre conceived bias who, instead of providing critical into the issues, spew ideological slogans and journalistic blasphemy. Conservative pundits shouldn’t be able to publicly question the legitimacy of President Obama’s place of birth without any evidence.

This rise in punditry show shows how divided our nation is. New channels violating journalistic ethics by allowing their platforms to be taken up by pundits instead of actual new reporting, are selling the American public the lowest common denominator of news to the public, where lacking information, shouting, disrespectful behavior, excessive theatrics, and the like are accepted. This is far more engaging and will guarantee these corporations far better rating than actually having intelligent conversations and breaking stories globally.

This is even apparent on the web. While the web is filled with great sources of information like BBC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Reuters, The Independent, PBS, and countless others, people are drawn to “click-bait” sites like Buzzfeed or Clickhole and use sources like Twitter to get there news. These companies interests are not educating the people, but are to make money and keep the public content and consumeristic. You even have advertising built into those websites so that they appear to be articles.These shows also have a blatant US centric view, as with most US news, while foreign programming provides a more comprehensive view of issues around the world. They also feature human interest stories, that while interesting, take away time from serious new matters and are usual altruistic, all-american sweet stories that perpetuate American ideology. If more people were not only aware, but has the reality of the heatwave in India where over 1,100 people have died as temperatures went up to 122 F, maybe there could be a change. These heat waves are becoming more frequent as a result of global warming that has been perpetuated by capitalitalist production. But this isn’t the front story of the news, and the worst part is sadly, because of the anti humanist, anti intellectual culture we are raised in, not many people would care.

News is completely controlled by business now. Intellectual Noam Chomsky, who wrote the book Manufacturing Consent on this topic, said “The very idea of advertiser reliance radically distorts the concept of free media." The heavy reliance of advertising money distorts what is shown and emphasised in the media. The lowest common denominator of news is shown to satisfy the most people, not educate them. Tools like TV and the internet should be use to spread information to the public and give them a forum to voice their opinion, not dictated what to think by corporate interests.